Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. Plot and certain details are of my own creation.

Summary: While TOWHEAD operates undercover in Hakodate, targetting the young nubile Ishikawa Rika at ANBU's dark behest, an important political summit approaching. Sakura has been laid unconscious prior to the start of her FieldS certification exam, five days of hell on earth, and Sasuke, has just set out to receive a mission.

Chapter 2

Wasteland's Edge

Smoke and sizzle filled the air around Yakitori Tori, the best yakitori-ya in Konoha. The owner and his sons had been awake long before dawn began to creep over the horizon, making the most of what they hoped was an end to days of rain. Banners to unfurl, grills to scrape and scrub, and chicken, hundreds of chickens, to clean, slice, and baste.

Tori Ondori wiped his forehead, pushing back all the sweaty hair that always seemed to work its way out from under his bandana. He rushed back and forth, adroitly managing to keep a steady stream of skewers—tare so tantalizingly tangy—moving from the preparation area to open grill, rotating the cooking chicken to perfection, delicately balancing them on the precipice of an undercooked ascent and an overcooked nosedive.

Ondori looked up from the grill into a pair of impassive black eyes and panted out a greeting. "Uchiha-san." A few 500 ryo coins thudded into the till his son should have been tending, concentration turned by a group of chattering high school girls making eyes at him from across the road. Another coin hit his son in the back of his head, and Ondori stifled a laugh.

"A-Ah, sorry Uchiha-san." His son blushed and returned to the till, furtively trying to keep an eye on the road for passing beauties.

Yakitori Tori had long been frequented by Uchiha. Immediately adjacent to the Uchiha clan's substantial holdings, Ondori's father's grandfather had established cheery acquaintance with most of the MP's, his stall the gathering place of choice for the police getting off work. The tradition had continued for generations, interrupted only once, hopefully never again.

He had been surprised one day four years ago to see the spitting image of Uchiha Mikoto looking at him over the grill. Ondori had never questioned Sasuke about his sojourn in Oto, the details—a particularly nasty mind control jutsu—and what were said to be details—kinky snake tongue sex! Did the fujoshis know no decency!?—seemingly hashed over by everyone in Konoha. Usually, few words were exchanged between the two, Sasuke settling to watch him ply his trade over the charcoal. Once, Uzura, his son, had asked Sasuke what he found so interesting about turning yakitori.

"Your father has impressive eyes. He sees the meat completely," Sasuke had replied before returning to his silent observation. Uzura had been mystified, but Ondori had catalogued the complement with the few his father had deigned to grace him with when he was young and learning the intricacies of the family business. In any case, whenever his young lady was with him, she made more than enough conversation for the three of them.

Ondori's hands flew across the grill, protected by calluses and deadened nerves, picking up a dozen of the best cooked yakitori to be packaged. Sasuke accepted the bag and nodded, whispering to Uzura out of the side of his mouth, "Stare naturally or they'll think you're a pervert." Uzura, stopped, pondering the contradiction, before Ondori yelled at him and they both set to work again.

Sasuke espoused roof-hopping for the anonymity of Konoha's main thoroughfare. Eventually he left the crowded market, moving past all the boutiques and shops and restaurants for the Hokage's Tower, precisely on time for his A-rank briefing. He was never so late as to break out of his established pre-mission routine. The scarlet mission bird had been an expected surprise, part and parcel of the jounin rank, no longer the shining beacon it had so often been during his chuunin days.

Now Sasuke received a steady stream of the red birds and their challenging missions, instead of alternating between laughably easy find-and-retrieve assignments and protection commissions that invariably went wrong—never fatally of course, he was there after all. Most ninja were more than adept at blowing things up. Stopping other shinobi from dispensing wholesale destruction was an art form.

"Upstairs today Uchiha-san." Sasuke was positive the kunoichi staffing the mission desk today had just chirped at him, along with her normal puerile blush-and-giggle routine. He never understood how she could be so happy, and stupid. If Sakura ever found out the girl made a point of trying to flirt with him, he'd end up going to med-nin bar nights the rest of his life. Of course if Suzu found out about it, the silly girl would probably end up dead, her corpse dumped in some hamburger machine.

Okuzaki Suzu had a slight case of hero worship. Prodigy and chuunin extraordinaire she may have been, Sakura somehow had made an indelible mark on her during their introduction. While Suzu wasn't a med-nin, she possessed the same type of freakish power and ability as her idol, enough that Sasuke had no desire to make either angry. Suzu had taken it upon herself to protect Sasuke's virtue, and so far, was doing an admirable job. And Sakura only encouraged her to work harder!

Suzu, unfortunately, was also working on her punctuality. Three-fourths of Team 13 were waiting on their errant rookie to show up. She'd get a strict tongue-lashing from one of them later, for all the good that it would do. Suzu thought she'd been put on a team with three other jounin because of her skills. Sasuke and his other teammates—Keiza and Sato, jounin of no small ability themselves—had spent the night after their first mission trying to find out just when and why her growth had plateaued. Naturally, Suzu had already found a way to annoy them without even being there.

Tsunade, accepting no explanation to why their shadow assignment might be too troublesome, or take too long, had drunkenly emphasized her point that night; idle fists cracked walls and splintered desks, demonstrating what she had in store for them if they weren't quickly able to polish Suzu up to jounin standard.

About fifteen minutes after Team 13 was ordered to report, Suzu rushed into Tsunade's hallway, her hair and attire a riot of colors and curves, a Narutoesque antithesis to stealth. She took her three yakitori—Sato and Keiza had gorged themselves immediately—and barged into the Hokage's office, showing great skill in eating and yelling simultaneously.

"Why can't we have an S-rank!?" Tsunade rolled her eyes at the ceiling and massaged the bridge of her nose. Sato and Keiza looked over Suzu's shoulder apologetically. Sasuke felt disgust trying to break free, but with some effort jailed it behind a contrite expression. Tsunade somehow always managed to blame the three for Suzu's idiocy more often than not. He didn't want to be accused of being ill-mannered either. Suzu settled for nothing, vehemently comparing the ninja that ran the mission room to all kinds of gutter rats, emphasizing the sexual favors the other jounin teams were obviously doling out to their rodent benefactors in return for the choicer assignments.

Tsunade pounded a fist on her desk, toppling a mountain of papers and scrolls over the floor, mollifying Suzu, activating the trigger opening her secret sake drawer. No one messed with Tsunade when she drank, especially out of stress. That position was reserved solely for Jiraiya and Shizune. Tsunade slammed down an empty tokkuri, belching unashamedly, before pushing four thin folders across the desk.

"Normally, I wouldn't assign something like this to your team. All that power is wasted on escort missions, but I think the circumstances surrounding this mission dictate that it's you, and you only." said Tsunade. She flicked at a few switches under her desk. A projector screen rolled down on the wall to their left, an image slowly focusing as the projector warmed up. It showed a large map, with a very detailed route and itinerary. There had to be at least six different checkpoints, four in major cities no less. Sasuke wondered how exactly they were to guard someone if they wanted to be so overt in their movement.

"Now it's not exactly one person, but the interests of Mitaka-sama are not to be taken lightly. Of course the Daimyo will not be traveling with you personally, but several of his retinue and samurai will."

Suzu looked as apoplectic as Sasuke was stolid. She shook with the effort of holding her tongue before storming off, mission folder in hand, frustration coiling within her, waiting for the first unsuspecting training post to cross her path. Keiza and Sato were much better emotional barometers for Team 13, and even they looked dismayed. No one liked dealing with aristocrats, especially when they were going to be escorting clothes—they'd snuck a peek inside the folder while Suzu was on the brink of a spectacular implosion. And since it was clothes, the Daimyo's underlings would wander about, not pay attention to where they were going, and turn this escort mission into a general farce. The brief's initial one week completion estimate was as optimistic as a bag of Peeps at their saccharine best.

Team 13 sans Suzu left the Hokage's office, mission brief thoroughly discussed and amended. On top of the royal foolishness Team 13 had already accounted for, if these rains were truly the end of winter, the quick sweep of springtime humidity would turn the convoy into a maelstrom of annoyance and wasted time. Rent and bills would almost certainly have to be paid in advance, the customary empty-jounin-fridge cleaned out further, equipment needs remedied to the point of overstocking.

As Sasuke came back to his apartment, there was no indication that it was occupied, Sakura long gone, her summons scroll delivered precisely at the four-hour warning. So when Sasuke slipped in through the kitchen window to see two cloaked ninja looking through his fridge, he let fly with a barrage of shuriken before his feet even touched the ground, the tomoe of his Sharingan entelechies, already pulling illusions into reality.

Before Sasuke could launch himself across the room for a fatal strike, kunai fanning across his fingers, he saw a dozen gossamer chakra strings slither through the air, corralling his shuriken to the dark maple floor with a clatter.

"Play nice now little Sasuke," a condescending voice called from the bedroom halting him, a particular lilt to the last syllable of his name, calling to memories long forgotten; a vague remembrance of seeing his brother and a woman and his parents and low bows and quiet, but proud, murmurings rumbling through the hallways of his ancestral home.

A woman, well past the heights of middle-age, smirked at Sasuke with his own particular brand of sardonicism, as if she had practiced the look for hours in a mirror every day—not that he would know. More unsettling than the familiar mordant curl of her lips was the manner in which her Hyuuga juin was so prominently displayed. Oh, it was normal in its application, the sickly green cross and hooks, precipitant to the precipitate of her being, all that remained an empty vase, waiting to be broken in a fit of pique; now, the yoke so obviously thrown off, her shame her power, darkly celebrated and embraced, a miasma of bad intentions boiling on her skin. Sasuke gave no voice to his thoughts—renegades and vigilantes—one hand beginning its slow ritual caress of Kusanagi's hilt, lightning chakra crackling to life between his fingers.

"There's no need for that. We're just doing a little routine information gathering. You know, personal habits, diet, that kind of stuff." She crossed the room, scanning a notepad on the kitchen island. "I think that's it for this room, finish up in the bedroom." The other two ninja obeyed immediately, the kunai reflexively drawn out upon Sasuke's attack hidden once more, taking with them the notepad and a camera.

"What are you doing here?" She ignored him, drifting to the living room side of the kitchen—both Sasuke and Sakura were happy with their cozy apartment—looking at picture frames, lingering over a nostalgic group shot of Team 7.

"How's Sakura doing? Been eating well recently, getting enough rest? She's been picking up extra rotations at Konoha General from time to time. We have some questions about her fitness."

"We?"

"We as in us." She smirked at him again, browsing through Sakura's CD racks, tut-tutting over some artists, smiling at others, which ones Sasuke had no idea. Sakura had a maddeningly contradictory love of androgynous boy-idols and obscure art rock bands. Sasuke wondered when she even found the time between work and training and everything else to listen to music.

He gave up on his lines of inquiry. The ninja were harmless enough, and if it came down to forceful expulsion, Sasuke was confident he would be up to the task. He'd get answers soon enough, either when that maddening woman decided to open her mouth constructively, or after a small detour back to the Hokage's tower; so he waited.

The minutes dripped by, punctuated by the closing and opening of doors and drawers, the click of the camera shutter in the bedroom, the woman sometimes smirking at him, other times marble, but always flicking her keen eyes this way and that way, alternating between smooth flesh and distended veins pulsing with chakra, pulling Sasuke back in time to a white room and a one-way mirror and Byakugan, focused on him, always.

He remembered dreaming, he remembered pain, he remembered shame. Most of all, he remembered Hyuuga the all-seeing, taking pleasure in jerking him into position after position, shoving eyes of milk-white so close their eye-lashes flickered against him, mocking the Sharingan that could not surface, arrogant smiles oh so demeaning as they read the chaotic roil of his chakra coils, Sakura to the side, ashamed at being privy to such unsettling intimacy day after day.

Sakura had explained before the first session, unable to keep her hands from shaking as she administered the enema, "It's chakra-contrast media. It'll help them see the behavior of the chakratransmitters around your eyes and the juin and fuin. W-w-we, we need to know if Orochimaru can still control you." He hadn't spoken for a month after that, enema aside, 'if he can still control you,' always in his mind, disgraced by everything, held together by nothing but a daily visitation and eternities spent not looking at each other, Sakura deep in a medical journal, Sasuke looking for patterns in the ceiling.

Finally, after an interminable wait, the woman spoke.

"Sakura is about to take the FieldS exam. As a rule, I like to do a little background work the day of, current mindset and all that. Her ANBU dossier has an extensive profile, but it's nice to get your hands into the guts so to speak."

"So you're just an intelligence analyst?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and smiled a small private smile. "That's one part of my job description. This examination works on a much smaller scale, so we examiners need to know our examinees inside and out. And a little bit's me. I just do things this way."

Sasuke's reply was preempted by her subordinates. The three exchanged nods, puffing away in a familiar transport jutsu, but not before the woman smirked at him again—maybe Sakura was right to get annoyed with him when they went out sometimes—and wished him luck with his upcoming 'royal annoyances.' He knew then she was someone of power, real power, not just an arsenal of blistering assassination jutsu that would turn you into a spray of blood and bone fragments—like himself—but someone who knew where all the strings were, and had probably done well for herself jerking them around.

Sasuke was lost in revolving rumination—Sakura and Hyuuga and the not-so-secret-A-rank-mission— thoughts occasionally spinning out of control, forcibly diffusing through the pia mater, ghosting through the arachnoid, completely ignoring the dia mater, to reverberate off his skull, ping-ponging around before the currents of his brain pulled them back in line. He put on a look of disaffectation, taking his time on the way to East Gate, punctual to the tick of the second-hand, impossibly forcing himself to look even more emotionally stunted as the members of the caravan bustled around him.

Kato was handling the introductions; Suzu too visibly vexed, Sato too unsettlingly epicene, Sasuke too disturbingly dismissive. The leader of the caravan, a samurai, wobbly jowls an indication of how little he did in the Daimyo's court besides chase courtesans and drink his Lord's sake, blustered on and on about the fine journey—a goddamn death-march—they would undergo for the glory of The Fire. Sasuke nodded through his speech, discretely taking measure of their traveling party: a half-score of samurai, several carts and wagons—food, clothing, and completely unnecessary items—the aristocrats, courtiers and attendants, and the Royal Concubines; all flittering about, too many to realistically keep track of with only a team of four. He grimaced, instinctively feeling a few point at his back. Though he couldn't see their fingers, he knew it as surely he knew the intricacies of the Sharingan; The Last and Final Uchiha, the Daimyo surely spraying the spittle of political influence all over Tsunade's face, a firm reminder when they arrived in Ikazuchi of the assets Konoha, no, he, could bring to bear, not even counting what was surely to be the personal escort of an ANBU platoon.

Sato and Suzu had disappeared into the trees, Suzu not trusted to play nice, Sato to keep her in line, leaving Kato and Sasuke as the final line of defence. Sasuke sighed, and mounted the horse provided for him. They'd all either be mounted or in the carts, even the samurai. It was much better than walking, but just another hassle when there were jutsu screaming overhead and the horses spooked, dumping their riders, carts chasing the terror of a horse's addled mind; an easy distraction for attacking ninja to create and maintain and take advantage of.

Sasuke just sat, monosyllabic, effectively dismissing the halting approaches of blushing women, at odds with the effortless finery they let slither around their bodies. And then, with a creak of the gates and a flourish of horns, they set off, half the royal retinue, most of the Daimyo's effects, a travel route more suited for haphazard sightseeing than a diplomatic journey, and the four ninja unlucky enough to be to be joining this crocked tour of idiocy.

Sakura awoke with a fit, blinking her eyes in the darkness, their aperture dilating, light the only object of interest, but nowhere to be found. The faint echoes of drips and drops surrounded her, the dank smell of water and gloom and wet earth wafting across her nose, the cave whispering to her senses. She flipped to her feet quickly, taking a defensive stance, figuratively and literally completely in the dark, muscles tight, chakra beginning to pool in her fists, only relaxing, slightly, when no attack came.

Sakura formed a handful of seals and brought her open palms together, carefully molded chakra, slowly compressing itself around her eyes, ears, and nose; an S-rank sensory enhancement jutsu, highly dangerous and highly useful. Sakura turned slowly, sniffing, blinking; straining her ears before pinpointing the cave mouth, the only source of fresh air and light, but also ominous rumblings.

Sakura maintained the jutsu till the exit, releasing it with a sigh before taking stock of her surroundings. The cave entrance was an abrupt ledge, about half-way up an imposing scarp, surrounded by a harrowing descent, or climb, the rock face covered with mist and Konoha's indigenous flora, a waterfall thundering to her left. Below, a diorama of trees and water contained by a mountain range; a seemingly idyllic river valley.

She looked down once more; immediately, cerise nipples and vanilla curves; lower, a bikini line begging for a beach vacation; everywhere, a rosy blush protesting chilly air and her ill treatment. Sakura, angry but rational, clenched her jaw and kneeled, rubbing a handful of earth into her palms together till she was confident in their grip.

Sakura flexed her fingers and slowly, oh so slowly, began her descent, valley floor the only guaranteed promise of shelter and supplies. The dirt on her palms quickly became mud, dripping off her hands into her hair and onto her face as she scanned above and below, agonizingly circumspect in her choice of handholds and footholds, deliberately moving between rampant green downwards and away from the water. Three times, Sakura lost her footing, an immense amount of force straining her fingers, feet scrabbling for purchase, a small prayer grinding between her teeth, crevices and jags of rock and burning arms her only hope. Once Sakura paused, the waterfall's spray far behind, talus finally coming into view below her, still only pebbles in her eyes, searing muscles pleading for the eventual respite laying past the rock formation; Inner Sakura was ferociously fighting the constant battle against the prospect of rest threatening to consume her and break focus' tenuous stranglehold.

The talus was enormous, boulders the size of oxen falling over each other, but after the grueling descent, Sakura was almost childlike, flying down to the forest with a hop-skip-jump off the rocks all the way down to the forest floor, rebounding straight into the darkness of the understory. There she rested, a half-hour spent pulsing chakra through her body to hasten muscle recovery, the total chakra conserved well worth passing up a chakra-aided descent.

Again, Sakura performed Sameru no Jutsu, heightening her senses, quickly scanning her surroundings, only releasing the justu and heading north towards the waterfall when she was certain she was alone. Sakura tempered her pace as the waterfall grew louder, the water sure to be a gathering place for all kinds of creatures, the large predators of Konoha's forests only a nuisance, other shinobi foremost in her mind. Sakura knew during the course of the exam, she'd eventually be forced to fight, ANBU never failing to be thorough in any of their work, or tests. The plunge pool and the adjacent cliffs lacked immediate cover for her to escape in, but still preferable to the river downstream where the surrounding trees would allow attackers to come at her from any direction.

Sakura's throat and chest were asthmatic when she finally broke through the tree line to the plunge pool, a mistake spread out as far as she could see. Quickly, Sakura jumped up to the highest reaches of the canopy, taking in the underpinnings of her miscalculation. The cliffs were indeed immense, more so than she had originally thought, the gruesome specter of jagged teeth ripping through the flesh of the sky covered at the penultimate glory by gamboling clouds. And as the cliffs were high, so did the water fall, from the long view a powerful cascade breaking across multiple rock formations, mist drifting up and out and down, nature's Kirigakure no Jutsu. Sakura hadn't been mindful of how exactly far she'd distanced her from the waterfall in her descent, not taking into account how long it had taken to move past the dangerous wet rocks, rightfully focused on the intricacies of the cliff face immediately around her.

Either way, water supply was paramount, so Sakura took her chances in the blanket of mist, waiting and waiting, eyes straining through the haze, waiting for her target. When the deer appeared, she made sure to kill the doe and its fawn, both saved from the agony of seeing the death of family; herself two deer bladders to turn into water canteens, and the doe's femur, a more than serviceable club.

It wasn't much later, the blood finally scrubbed from her hands, that she found the need to clean her feet of the same. Sakura had moved quickly, dumping the deer's corpses in the pool, their scent finally scrubbed from her body. Sakura knew of a variety of fruiting trees and bushes, memorized ages ago in the Academy. She'd found a cluster of mulberry trees not far from the plunge pool, leaves and fruit far from fully formed, but easily coaxed into bloom and vigor with an elementary med-jutsu, the barely breathing body decidedly less so.

He had to be ANBU, Combat Division, candidate for full commission; no tattoo, but Sakura knew the moment she looked at him, body holding all the signs of a ninja who pushed too hard, and then pushed more and more through training regimens prolonged with addictive drug cocktails; training missions he tried not to cry about in the middle of the night; till he started to physically and mentally break down, dying like this, like a mutt, his mind still filled with glory, handlers who just couldn't be assed to care about a boy; just a boy who couldn't hack it, just a boy laying in a pool of blood.

All ninja heard rumors about what ANBU did to a person, but Sakura had never seen it till now. His face was pale and drawn from more than lack of blood, dark bruises all over from physical trauma and chakra forcibly molded till capillaries ruptured, body groaning and straining to keep going. All the physical exertion Sakura had undertaken came to naught, wrists and fingers burning from chakra scalpels and cells coaxed into dividing faster than was healthy, ice forming in her stomach as she depleted her chakra reserves at an alarming rate.

A lesser med-nin would have left him for dead, but she was the Hokage's apprentice, she was trained to work miracles. Sakura could have left him for dead. This was a test after all, healing a ninja in this condition like trying to lock the door against Death knocking outside, but she didn't, because Sakura knew she could spend herself dragging the boy's ass back to whoever would have wept over him. She knew she could drag him and herself out of this forest away from whatever those bastards at ANBU HQ had set after them.

Words broke foreign over her lips, Sakura managing a, "You're okay kid," before licking chapped lips and flexing a jaw that had been gnashed together far too long. Sakura was a talkative person by nature, and it looked like she'd be spending the next five days in a forest with only an almost-corpse and natural flora to converse with.

Sakura moved quickly after healing him, the boy hidden behind some bushes, the bottom of his pants fashioned into bags for mulberries and some roots, canteens filled and refilled after she all but forced water into him, and finally, a mud bath; her hair pulled out and twisted into rope to tie a mish-mash of leaves and branches at random over a walking mud cake.

Sakura had initially wanted to confine herself to an area she would have quickly memorized, setting traps and directing attacks along avenues of her choosing, but there was no such latitude anymore. She sat on a tree branch above the boy, only till the mud dried, setting off in the trees above the river, body over shoulder; not too slow for he would definitely not live out the next five days, but not too fast either. The forest held definite hostiles, obviously not going to hold back against one of their own and a med-nin, however important they might be. The last thing Sakura needed was an ambush.

The boy groaned, and Sakura groaned. Human sounds were a dead giveaway in the forest. Contrary to the normal conception that ninja's move silently everywhere, the key to traveling through a forest that has more animals than it has trees, was allowing your ear to hear the natural melody and then insinuate yourself into it, moving irregularly; stop here, skip there, crunch a branch, rustle a leaf; ninja couldn't throw a kunai at everything they heard. It's bad form.

She paused to tear off a strip of the boy's undershirt, sterilizing it with chakra, and tied it over his mouth. His breathing remained constant, a slow muffled rasp Sakura took great pains to disguise with a variety of natural sounds as she started to move again, the sun red and gold in the sky, darkness creeping from the forest floor to eat the last motes of light twirling in the canopy, an almost imperceptible distortion in the air trailing her, as it had been since she had first come to consciousness in the cave.

Author's Note: Well this took awhile. I had much more fun with Sakura, but it'll be awhile before she actually gets to say something. I don't think I like her very much, yet. I can grow to love her. Sasuke is interesting, but he will always be annoying to write, a little too aloof for me. A little experimentation with this chapter with the length of sentences it's effect on the story's pacing. Not that I should be worry about that kind of technique yet but I get ahead of myself sometimes. I think it reads well though, though there are a few suspect sentences above. When I figure out how to fix them, I just may well do that. Overall, Chapter 1 is still my strongest effort, I feel, but Chapter 2 does have its strong points.

Fire away and don't spare the whip. Hit hard. Cut deep. I've always had a little kink in me. (review + criticize)